Artillery weapons have been used for hundreds of years. These weapons have been continuously developed to improve accuracy, effectiveness, and efficiency. For example, U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,945,813; 6,024,007; and 6,595,103 disclose various designs for gun systems, all of which patents are incorporated by reference herein in their entireties.
When an artillery weapon is fired, the energy of the round must be absorbed by the weapon's structure and eventually transmitted to the ground. Modern artillery systems incorporate recoil mechanisms to modulate the forces associated with these firings to a level that can be effectively and reliably supported by the structure. With some recoil mechanisms, the energy of the round is dissipated by throttling fluid over the length of the recoil. The minimum level of this modulating force is directly proportional to the length of recoil.
In a soft recoil system, the recoiling parts are accelerated forward prior to the firing of the round by an internal gas spring. When the round is fired, nearly half of the energy of the round is used to stop the forward motion of the recoiling parts and the remaining energy is used to force the recoiling parts rearward, recompressing the gas spring. The recoiling parts are then captured by a latch in preparation for the next firing. This use of momentum exchange and energy conservation by the soft recoil technique results in recoil force reductions as high as 75% when compared to conventional recoil systems.
Although the soft recoil technique offers considerable advantages, there are some drawbacks associated with the cycle. Among these are: (1) A different run-up velocity is required for each of the different zones/charges being fired to maximize the benefits, (2) If the round fails to fire during the run up (known as a misfire), the buffing load required to bring the forward velocity of the recoiling parts to zero may be high enough to cause some weapon instability, and (3) If the round fires prematurely from the latch position (known as a “cookoff”), the conventional recoil-style buffer rearward of the latch point may induce sufficient forces to cause the weapon to slide rearward or become unstable.